Reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition can help us connect with a rich faith history and address the urgent issues of our times. Demonstrating an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, New Testament scholar Esau McCaulley shares a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation.

A stirring meditation of being Black and learning to love in a loveless, anti-Black world “Only once in a lifetime do we come across a writer like Danté Stewart, so young and yet so masterful with the pen. This work is a thing to make dungeons shake and hearts thunder.”—Robert Jones, Jr., New York Times bestselling author of The Prophets In Shoutin’ in the Fire, Danté Stewart gives breathtaking language to his reckoning with the legacy of white supremacy—both the kind that hangs over our country and the kind that is internalized on a molecular level. Stewart uses his personal experiences as a vehicle to reclaim and reimagine spiritual virtues like rage, resilience, and remembrance—and explores how these virtues might function as a work of love against an unjust, unloving world. In 2016, Stewart was a rising leader at the predominantly white evangelical church he and his family were attending in Augusta, Georgia. Like many young church leaders, Stewart was thrilled at the prospect of growing his voice and influence within the community, and he was excited to break barriers as the church’s first Black preacher. But when Donald Trump began his campaign, so began the unearthing. Stewart started overhearing talk in the pews—comments ranging from microaggressions to outright hostility toward Black Americans. As this violence began to reveal itself en masse, Stewart quickly found himself isolated amid a people unraveled; this community of faith became the place where he and his family now found themselves most alone. This set Stewart on a journey—first out of the white church and then into a liberating pursuit of faith—by looking to the wisdom of the saints that have come before, including James H. Cone, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, and by heeding the paradoxical humility of Jesus himself. This sharply observed journey is an intimate meditation on coming of age in a time of terror. Stewart reveals the profound faith he discovered even after experiencing the violence of the American church: a faith that loves Blackness; speaks truth to pain and trauma; and pursues a truer, realer kind of love than the kind we’re taught, a love that sets us free.

Important questions face any pastoral counselor when working with African American couples and families. Edward Wimberly focuses on the religious worldview that African Americans bring to their understanding of marriage and family, so that the counselor can learn the assumptions behind the presenting problems. Wimberly's treatment examines the social context of African American families, the separate issues for men and women, intergenerational factors, the impact of the life cycle, sexuality, affairs, and abuse. This wide-ranging book is exceptionally practical for all pastoral caregivers. The purpose of the Counseling and Pastoral Theology series is to address clinical issues that arise among particular populations currently neglected in the literature on pastoral care and counseling. This series is committed to enhancing both the theoretical base and the clinical expertise of pastoral caregivers by providing a pastoral theological paradigm that will inform both assessment and intervention with persons in these specific populations.

Since its start in 1966, black liberation theology in the United States has continually engaged international developments with Africa and the entire world. But after Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, there has been an almost twenty-year break in books on black theology and international affairs. Black Theology--Essays on Global Perspectives bridges that post-1990 gap and makes a vital contact with Africa again. This book conceptualizes black theology to take on the global reconfigurations and opportunities brought about by the rapidly shrinking earth of fast-paced, worldwide contacts. In other words, in the specificity of the genealogy of black theology, we need to reforge ties with Africa. This claim is based on tradition. And in the generality of the larger worldwide intertwining of technologies and economics, we need a new type of black theological leadership for the twenty-first century. This claim is based on today's international challenges. The essays in this book draw on tradition and point forward in the midst of today's worldwide challenges and favorable possibilities, given the closeness of all nations and the varieties of cultures.

Based on a thematic and topical structure, this handbook provides scholars and advanced students detailed description, analysis, and constructive discussions concerning African American theology - in the forms of black and womanist theologies. This volume surveys the academic content of African American theology by highlighting its sources; doctrines; internal debates; current challenges; and future prospects, in order to present key topics related to the wider palette of black religion in a sustained scholarly format.